Blogging Sucks! Here Is How To Fall In LOVE With It

The Holy Grail Of Online Jobs isn’t actually all it’s wrapped up to be. I’m talking about “blogging” for a living. Blogging or playing video games on YouTube… it’s all the same. You might even think it sounds great and fun so you go ahead and start. Months (or even a year) pass by and you then realize why so few people are successful at it. Attracting a dedicated audience that wants to view your content daily or even weekly is difficult. It is beyond difficult, unless you understand how.

That how is chased by tons of bloggers and content creators. Let’s dissect a few major pieces and start developing a plan to overcome and gain that audience.

Your “blog” or “videos” are not ranking in Google so they don’t get any natural traffic.

Producing content is becoming more and more difficult since there’s nothing new to say or discuss.

The last straw? The few comments (always the first few) are either spam or naysayers telling you how much they hate what you’re doing.

Congratulations… This is about the time when everyone quits.

Why quit? What can you do in order to be successful in blogging?

I don’t claim to have it all figured out by any stretch of anyone’s imagination. And for anyone reading this, I’d like to make the disclaimer that what I’m outlining here is only my “opinion.” One that’s based on my personal experience.

I actually know a lot of people who have listened or heeded what many various online “gurus” have said. From what they say, I think many of the advice is just plain sketchy. For instance, the advice “just publish daily” isn’t real. It doesn’t work and is just a plain waste of your time and effort.

The Real Truth About Blogging

One of the most common mistakes I see is when bloggers start writing for themselves. Unless you’re some celebrity or an extremely interesting persona, this tactic would never fly if you want an audience. Sooner or later, you’ll realize that you’d need to write for the kind of audience you want to attract.

Why? Because your audience dictates your success. You need to understand them and evoke the right emotional responses from them. This, of course, requires research and “synergy.” which is also an art form and not just science.

The hardest piece of this puzzle is being able to intentionally attract a real audience that’s close to your ideal. I can tell you that narrowing down the scope of your target audience makes this process a lot simpler. What I mean is that if you learn to blog to a small group of people that are truly passionate then it’s easier to scale from there. It’s easier because you just have to do more of the things that have worked for you so far!

When you feel connected to your audience, it’s no longer just a “public content” you put out there. It becomes a personal conversation between you and your audience. Since attention and interaction draw people in, your blog visitors will see what you’re putting out there and will then “crave it” if they like the way you’re engaging them. Once you form that kind of connection, you’ll then be able to form a level of trust that you haven’t thought possible before.

Blog to a Small Group of People—Be Selective of Your Audience

When you start your blog it’s imperative (big words coming out now—watch out) that you choose your audience correctly. Everything and I mean everything, can contribute to your success.

Your website is the first and often times, only interaction you will ever have with “your audience.” That’s why when take together—your domain name, your site design, and an above-the-fold layout becomes an important way to grab the attention of your audience.

Selecting your audience should be based on your “niche.”

I know that the word is a bit overused but often never truly explained. It sounds easy in theory yet sites like nichehacks.com are around for a reason. It’s super hard for us as humans to say NO to anything and that more is merrier. We feel pigeonholed when we select a tiny niche. We look at Google Keywords and think we need something with tons of searches. We don’t want to miss the big ticket terms that people are searching for.

Let’s take a deep dive into the word here in order for me to prove my point.

“he is now a partner at a leading law firm and feels he has found his niche”

synonyms:

ideal position, place, function, vocation, calling, métier, job

“he found his niche in life”

ECOLOGY

a position or role taken by a kind of organism within its community. Such a position may be occupied by different organisms in different localities, e.g., antelopes in Africa and kangaroos in Australia.

3.

a specialized segment of the market for a particular kind of product or service.

“he believes he has found a niche in the market”

adjective

adjective: niche

1.

denoting or relating to products, services, or interests that appeal to a small, specialized section of the population.

Did You Notice the Actual Word Classified In The Definitions?

That means that if you’re going to blog for a “niche” then you are in fact limiting yourself. That is, by the very definition of the word, the whole point of taking that step. Yet, mentally at least, we struggle to “niche” down on anything.

That’s definitely a big mistake to make because if you fail to niche down then you aren’t going to attract the best kind of audience to read what you’re writing. As the saying goes, “Trying to please everyone, pleases no one.” Don’t make the same mistake I did in the past. Find a small audience and blog the hell out in order to cater them. Your website will grow 10 times faster because of it.

How to Know If You’ve Niched Down or Not

This is a big part of the process and there are a couple of pointers I’ll be outlining in order to properly make my point. Realize that’s how important this is. It’s the most important step you can take. Period. Until you select an audience to truly talk to, you won’t be able to talk your best.

When You Don’t Have A Niche, Your Writing “Feels” Like This:

You Feel Like You’re Making Public Speeches Instead of Talking to Just One Person

You Think Too Broadly and Realize How a “Point” Isn’t True for Anyone in Particular

You Struggle to Find “Your Voice”

Your Writing Doesn’t Have Crisp Clarity and Cleanspeak and is Full of Generalities

You Struggle to Think of Ideas

You Research Keywords and Never Focus on Any

You Focus Too Much on Keywords Instead of Subjects

You Can’t Exactly Pinpoint What Will Evoke Emotion from Your Audience

You’re Scared of Pissing People Off

The Elephant in the Room Always Sits There… and You Never Address It

Niching down can be a clarifying process to your writing that it is the most important step to becoming a great writer. That cleanse is because for once, you actually know who you’re speaking to. You know their life. You know their drama and you know their pain and problems.

This is the biggest test of niching down at least for me. If I can think of more than 30 people in my city that this blog is for then my audience is probably too broad.

BOOM.

Clarity. For me that really did it. I realized that if I was writing to chiropractors (a small but not super small niche) that I still passed this rule. The only one that really doesn’t apply here is mommy bloggers. I hope there are more than 30 moms in your town—same with dads or athletes.

For me, I focus on what people are interested in. I then dissect it until I find a small sub segment that I can start in. Then I find all their online communities. I live there for a while and then I answer questions or ask them on Quora myself.

All of that comprises my introductory research. I then apply a survey funnel and get started making the blog.

Don’t Get Lost in a Sea of Advice

That’s where I find myself so many times when it comes to trying to figure out what my next step is. There are a lot of advice on the internet and if you don’t know which ones to heed, you can get jaded pretty quickly. This is where niching down can be hard. I have heard it so many times and yet I still miss it so often.

This, my friends, is called ad blindness except it’s a different type—let’s call it advice blindness. (See what I did there?)

The advice to niche down is everywhere. It’s everyone’s by word and often the first step in so many manuals and guides. It’s also the “writer’s advice” in almost every blogging course ever made out there. The biggest claim? It’s how millions are made online. Yet… I didn’t practice it.

This made me start really looking at how I had missed such a critical piece of advice for so long. I mean I even wrote about niching down and told others this often repeated advice. It then hit me that I was giving advice that I wasn’t following myself.

I remember making decisions so many times about large websites and deciding not to niche down because I would miss some “traffic.”

How did I miss it? Was I stupid?

The answer was yes.

LOL. 🙂

Not really. I just felt that way.

Was I Blind Or Just Really Bad At This?

The truth was I had developed advice blindness. I was blind to general advice that worked. I had gotten used to having “blinders” of sorts on at all times. I didn’t want to get bad advice so anything that was being preached online as the “norm” was scrutinized heavily.

My mental scrutiny put good advice into a “reserved for further deliberation” category. I wasn’t labeling the advice of niching down as bad… I was simply throwing the baby out with the bath water. I had failed to really understand and apply the advice.

I’m writing about this strange occurrence because it pained me and it also caused me to miss tons of money because of it. I don’t want you to suffer the same problems.

Niching down might be a general advice but a real and amazing one, nonetheless.

Take the time to really dive in and understand what it means. Make sure you’re niched down as far as you can go. Especially if this is your first site or your first-time venturing out in the world of online marketing. Make sure your niche is well chosen and small enough that you can focus on people instead of subjects.

Don’t develop ad…vice blindness. Follow an advice if it’s reasonable and study it. Define it and gain clarity. It’ll make you a better blogger and person no doubt.

Breaking Rule 1 Is Sometimes Amazing!

Tim Ferriss talks about how he selected his products in his podcasts. Tim is responsible for more “digital nomads” than anyone can attribute a number to. His book, The 4-Hour Work Week, inspired and “corrupted” so many people to start “living like the new rich.” This dream of 4-hour work weeks with automated processes running an online selling machine has sent many a blogger to buying hosting plans and starting their journey in the online realm.

Tim is super successful. He offers amazing advice and is “built different” than most of us. He has a way of finding principles that matter and getting spectacular results because of it.

I say all that to say the following: He focuses his products on a very specific kind of individual. He builds stuff that he would want. That’s it. He figures at if there’s at least one other person who is similar to him then there must be more.

He wrote the book (the best selling and the huge hit) 4-Hour Work Week focusing on just one friend.

There’s power in writing for yourself or just one specific person. This is different in the sense that you no longer have to take into account different people but only on a specific type of individual, you’d like to attract. I think that in some respect, it’s the same advice. You are still focused on the audience but you’re able to sum up that person down to just one figure in your head.

That’s actually the perfect advice to follow up to rule 1 where you have to put your audience first. You should be able to distill your target audience down to your perfect persona. This is how you do it. You focus all of your writing as if you were talking to that one person through a personal conversation.

This gives you the perfect audience—close enough that the conversation actually gains clarity. That’s the reasoning behind it. You focus on one person and more importantly, their results. You’re helping that person navigate through something that you know.

You are the navigator (bad 80’s movie reference, sorry).

Super Powerful Concepts Are Needed But Where’s The Teacher?

You’re probably realizing now that you being the navigator means you have to know the map. That’s correct. You have to understand the concepts you’re teaching and writing about well enough to be able to help others. There are a few paths where you can be the “crash test dummy” or the “leader” in your online adventure.

Either way, you’re going to help others find their way around.

You’re going to help them push through the hard times.

You’re going to help them keep keepin’ on.

You’re going to help them think about answers to questions they hadn’t even considered yet.

In all of that, it can get scary. You don’t know all this stuff!

RELAX…

Passion, Hard Work, And Research Are All You Need.

It was explained to me like this:

Do you remember that movie (true story) “Catch Me If You Can.” There was a part there where Frank Abagnale taught as the teacher in a college. He was a student (or impersonating) one at the time. When the FBI caught him and asked him how he did it? He said simply, “I just read one chapter ahead.”

That’s the secret. You just have to study ahead of your audience. You have to be one chapter ahead.

I coach basketball (I volunteer at a private school) and this principle applies here as well. While I have experience in playing a lot of sports in school, I had no idea how to coach.

Whats even crazier?

I’m really good at it.

The teams I coach win championships. They even got 2nd in Nationals. That’s on the high school level.

Here Was The Secret Of My Success

I spot talent and know the players better than they know themselves. I studied Youtube videos and coaching websites and then I applied a set of plays and playing style that fit our talent. I focused on precision and execution. I made it fun for them…

Those were the major points.

From nowhere, I developed coaching skills.

I developed winning players.

Players that are actually getting college scholarships.

I helped teams win.

The most important thing about doing all those is that I read one chapter ahead. Not just one chapter ahead of my players… but also one chapter ahead of even the other coaches. (HAHA).

What Really Makes Or Breaks Success

The last major point in my success as a coach was the relationships I formed. I have and will always have a deep connection with all of those players.

We became family. They still come to the office and we play dumb video games and talk life. They want to be around me. I love hanging out with them.

As they get older, these players will become dads. They will become businessmen.

They will grow up, hopefully soon :).

That relationship will still be there. If any of them need anything and fall on hard times they know they can just call Coach Will.

One day, they hopefully coach a team. They may even talk about me like I talked about the people that coached me.

Cool Circle But Weird, Right?

Maybe you’re not coaching but you’re developing relationships and growing an audience.

Impacting others in a positive way is the goal, correct? Develop a real relationship and stay one chapter ahead. Be there regardless of their status and they know they can turn to your website to read and interact. Make it so that they know you’re just one reply away. There’s power in being acknowledged like that.

Keep On Doing Outreach But Don’t Spam People!

My last major point pertains to how to grow your blog.

Know that as part of your blog’s growth, you’ll need to reach out to tons of people. You’ll need to develop relationships with anyone that has a similar audience to yours.

This can seem endless but the trick is to not get overwhelmed.

How I Would Start Growing a Blog Today

If I were to start growing a blog today, I would start with blogging on Medium.

Medium offers a huge exchange of information. People that are in your niche are already there reading others. If you share your content across it then more people will see it naturally than if it was just published on your own blog.

Build A One Page Lander And The Blog On Medium

I would build a single page lander using the Growtheme (click at the footer on the paper airplane). I would choose the domain first obviously. I would set up the hosting and put up that one pager.

Then I would go off and start writing on Medium. I would comment and follow everyone on Medium that’s in my niche. Once I found my voice I would start using Medium to push people to articles on my website. I would obviously hook up MailChimp to my list so I can start growing that from the one pager I put up.

List Building Is The First Goal

I would write out 10 to 15 emails that are auto dripped out to anyone who signs up. Often, this means I have to make some videos or content to drip out. I would later come back and send out each blog post as they were made, done in order so that each content is always being pushed out to people.

When a content is relevant, even if it’s not the “latest,” then it’s able to provide value. Evergreen content gets better even if it’s been published for quite some time. Just make sure you check your old content as you update your blog or when there’s any change worth noting.

Run Small Social Campaigns To Boost Traffic And See What Works

I would also run $5 dollar Facebook campaigns to every post. I would study the results to see what people are reacting to the most.

I would find 15 to 20 other blogs and contribute at least 3 times there. This is just so the audience gets used to you a bit. If I see a spike from a specific guest post, then I would blog more frequently.

I would use Quupromote and promote the blog posts that have the most shares from my Facebook tests.

Test Headlines Then Test More Click Bait Headlines

I would test headlines multiple ways—and always. Headlines are click bait and the first interaction that anyone has with your content so make sure you give it your best shot. Test the headlines on CoSchedule’s headline analyzer in order to maximize its impact.

I would setup an outreach campaign. This is the nuts and bolts of growth. When you can use software like Ninja Outreach and find those 20 blogs to guest post on then you’re firing on all cylinders.

Setup the outreach to get you in front of the right people and spark relationships. Offer incentives. Buy a Facebook page or Instagram account that has followers in your niche. Use it to jumpstart your brand but also as bait.

Outreach To Influencers and Other Blogs To Guest Post On

Send emails to your “influencers” that say something like this:

Hey “Name,”

I was checking out your latest posts. I found this one (call posts title not link) and loved it. The fact that you explained (point out an intelligent reason why you liked the post here) really helped me out. I know others would like it so I shared it. Hope that helps.

I have been writing recently about (useful information inserted here) and thought you may want to check it out (insert link here to one post).

I have a small following (insert number) on (Pinterest and Instagram) and shared your content there. Check it out here (link to your posts about them on social channels).

I need to grow my audience a bit.

I would love any feedback you can offer concerning (link to post again).

Thanks!

Will Robins

P.S. A share or link would be the best. If not then just letting me know what you didn’t like about the content will help me a ton. Thanks in advance.

This “script” or format has a lot in it to help you communicate what you want without begging. It also implies that you’ve already helped that person out and are counting on them to help you as well.

Send this to 10 people a day and watch your stats soar!

You can grow super fast using this small set of strategies.

SUPER TOP SECRET BONUS INFO About Guest Blogging

The raddest thing is when you apply the formulas above to every guest post that you do. Think of it like tiered link building. Your site has a link from your guest post on their blog. Now your links and social channels are on that page.

Moreover, it also helps you get future guest posts.

Lastly, I would publish on larger websites like Feedster.com You can do that through Getcontent.club. This helps you get your writing in front of a larger audience as well as build huge backlinks as you go.

Blogging is Amazing But Starting Right is the Most Important Thing

If you’re not following some of the advice I offered, it’s okay. Go back and correct it though.

Don’t develop ad…vice blindness.

Developing your audience and focusing on them is what will take your blog to the next level. Narrowing down that focus to that “one person” is how you get to the next level.

Focus on doing outreach and in getting in front of your audience’s influencers. Overall, this will push your content and traffic to another level. You can grow in a few short months and have an amazing, thriving blog in your niche where you can tap into your audience’s emotions every time you publish.

When you publish content and know that it’ll be able to provide value to your audience, it makes for an amazing feeling. Go get started and let me know how you do!

Summary

Article Name

Blogging Sucks! Here Is How To Fall In LOVE With It

Description

Growing a blog is really time consuming and hard. Will talks through how he has accomplished it and gives some "tools and tricks" of the trade.

Author

Will Robins

Publisher Name

Content HOW

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Will Robins

Husband and Father, Will focuses on family first under God.If you are searching for an engaged audience, the kind we all dream of, then you have found the right website. Will uses a personality with amazing salesmanship in his teaching.He focuses on how successful websites have grown their viewers and engagement.